Even though I am generally interested in science and technology, I have found it impossible to get excited about Artemis II.
I'm not quite sure. Maybe it's because America isn't exactly my favourite country these days because ... well, you know why. Or maybe it's because, contrary to what I'd always assumed, these things are a lot more jingoistic than I thought. It's not "Mankind is going to the moon", it's "America is beating China to the moon".
Yup.
Related:
I never see any of the "I'm just excited about space progress and science!" crowd celebrating any of the Chinese space flight accomplishments.
They were silent when China landed a robot on the moon a few years ago. Silent when China landed a rover on Mars. Silent about the Chinese space station that's orbiting the planet. Silent about China's crewed mission to Mars that is on schedule to depart on 2033.
When they talk about space and science and exploration being "humanity's accomplishments," it's pretty clear who they're viewing as humanity. There's an era of cold war nationalism that feels yucky.
The reality behind the scenes is far, far more complex than this.
Please say more?
Attached: 2 images Looking at the recent NASA photos, I'm reminded of this quote from Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell. "You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it." #NASA #ArtemisII
@RunRichRun @cyberlyra @davidnjoku @piquant00
You've either completely missed, or completely ignored, the point of my post.
I'll say it much more bluntly, to let you react to it:
It's not "cheering for humanity" if you only cheer when Europeans or Americans do it. Instead it's a weird kind of nationalism or eurocentrism that is the opposite of what Star Trek is supposedly selling.
And it's super obvious to non-white observers how we "cheer for humanity" when Elon or NASA does something spacey, but to not even talk about it when China or India do something.
India has also landed a probe on the moon, and India has sent a probe to Mars orbit. India is the first nation to successfully enter Mars orbit on the first try. And their mission control and science and engineering teams are a lot more gender balanced than most places.
I'm saying that we should "celebrate humanity's space achievements" when they do stuff too, but I don't see that happening.
This isn't "Don't cheer for NASA." I cheer for NASA!👍🏿
This is "Don't try to sell me that US space race fever, is a win for humanity, because it's not."
It's "We can have a Federation of Planets, just as long as Earth is the head of that Federation, and the US is the head of Earth, and Starfleet headquarters is in San Francisco. Anything else is Romulans! 🤡"
@Reinald @mekkaokereke @RunRichRun @cyberlyra @davidnjoku @piquant00 exactly! I don't cheer for Artemis, but I more interested in ESA missions.
China is a totalitarian regime abusing human rights in many different forms. Sadly the USA is now like that too. So I don't cheer for undemocratic countries, whether they may be China, Russia, North Korea or the USA.
@[email protected] @[email protected] @cyberlyra @[email protected] @[email protected] I fear you might still be thinking about this in the wrong way, if you're still thinking in terms of "cheer for China" or "cheer for the EU." Don't cheer for governments. Cheer for scientists. And as someone born in Africa 🙋🏿♂️, the EU was, is, and is likely to still be a much greater and more abusive military threat than China. Like, it's not close.
@s1m0n4 @Reinald @RunRichRun @cyberlyra @davidnjoku @piquant00
And again, from the perspective of an African born person, the EU governments are most definitely a dictatorship, and have never not been since colonization.
@mekkaokereke @Reinald @RunRichRun @cyberlyra @davidnjoku @piquant00 France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium and Italy have a colonialist past and are guilty of horrible crimes in the African continent. Each one to a different extent, I might say.
That's 7 countries out of 27, though 4 of them are the most populous.
Analysing the current situation, China is influencing African economies little by little. And the USA are making deals to run eugenics experiments on black people
@s1m0n4 @Reinald @RunRichRun @cyberlyra @davidnjoku @piquant00
"China is influencing African economies little by little."
I didn't say influencing economies. I said colonizing.
European people genuinely think that China doing trade and paying for things, is the same as how Europeans treat Africans. It is absolutely not the same. Not even close.
In Belgium today I can still buy chocolate hands. Because King Leopold murdered 10 million people, and maimed countless more. If you did not collect enough rubber, his men would take your children and cut their hands off. (Belgians, don't try to talk about Druon Antigoon or Hand Werpen. That's not when the chocolates hands became popular).
And Europeans abusing and exploiting Africans hasn't stopped. Margaret Thatcher's son was caught trying to overthrow a democratically elected African government in 2004.
Europeans talk about nuclear power as clean green energy, but don't like to talk about the fact that most European countries have no uranium, so where do they get the uranium from, and how? Because then you have to talk about Patrick Lumumba's tooth,.and how many Africans have died in the Congo and then Niger, and why can't Africa seem to have a stable, elected government, and why are these countries poor if their minerals are so valuable?
@s1m0n4 @Reinald @RunRichRun @cyberlyra @davidnjoku @piquant00
And the countries that you listed are ~70% of the EU's GDP, and ~65% of the EU's population.
So the whole "At least EU is not a brutal dictatorship!🤡" only holds if you don't see Africans as whole, actualized, human beings, but rather as cattle to be milked, mutilated, and eaten by real human beings.
@mekkaokereke @s1m0n4 @RunRichRun @cyberlyra @davidnjoku @piquant00 Neither China nor Russia nor US nor Europe is dealing with African countries on eye level. And, as shameful as the History is for Europe, we are not doing that much better now. Still.
Nevertheless I am not that sure, if the deals with China are a beneficial deal in the long run, or will create a different dependency and exploitation?
@Reinald @s1m0n4 @RunRichRun @cyberlyra @davidnjoku @piquant00
You're a European, who has never lived in Africa, telling an African whose family members were killed in pointless wars started by Europeans, and whose family members now live peacefully in a country that trades with China, what you think is best for Africa.
You're talking about "will these deals be good for Africa in the long run?" And I'm talking about many times more people killed than in the Jewish Holocaust, with 10 million Africans killed in just one country.
The level of arrogance and not listening is stunning.
China is dealing with African countries more fairly than any superpower to set foot on the continent. You just don't want to accept that because it breaks your worldview of US, Russia, and China bad, EU good.
You can't accept that for an African country, China is the best, then a gap, then Russia, then after a huge gap, the US and EU are tied for the worst, most violent, most evil.
You're not willing to genuinely consider the evidence that the EU was and is more brutal and inhumane to Africans than China.
@mekkaokereke @Reinald @RunRichRun @cyberlyra @davidnjoku @piquant00 if you want to put words in my mouth I didn't say, please go on.
Is labeling me as a white supremacist making you feel better?
Haven't I recognised that the countries I listed are responsible of horrible crimes?
And aren't your views a little unfair to Polish, Swedish, Greeks and all the other EU countries who had nothing to do with African colonization?
If I haven't set foot in Africa, you don't know what my family
/1
@s1m0n4 @Reinald @RunRichRun @cyberlyra @davidnjoku @piquant00
I didn't call you a white supremacist, I called you arrogant and said that you didn't listen.
And no I'm not being unfair to member countries of the European union who didn't have colonies but did benefit financially from the violence of those colonies by being in a literal economic union that was mostly paid for by illegitimate profits from those colonies.
And I didn't say you never set foot in Africa. I said you'd never lived in Africa. I'm happy to retract that if it's wrong, but I suspect I am not wrong. Have you ever lived in Africa? (Edit: I was wrong, Richard has lived in East Africa! I retract, but leaving it up so that people can see that I was wrong).
(Second edit: wait... Two different people are getting confused in the replies... Previous reply was to Richard, not Simon.)
@mekkaokereke @Reinald @RunRichRun @cyberlyra @davidnjoku @piquant00 experienced during fascism, why my views on dictators and totalitarian countries are what they are.
Contrary to popular narrative not all white are privileged. And believe it or not I had to emigrate too for a university degree.
Our views on China differs but I do agree on the fact that the African people aren't dying under the Chinese influence.
/2
@s1m0n4 @Reinald @RunRichRun @cyberlyra @davidnjoku @piquant00
This is close enough to common ground for me! 👍🏿
@Reinald @s1m0n4 @RunRichRun @cyberlyra @davidnjoku @piquant00
Also for Richard as Simon: this is close enough to agreement for me too!
You can see how from the lived experience of an African, the EU is much worse, much less trustworthy, much more exploitative, and much more barbarically violent, than China.
The EU could change this at any time! But they haven't yet.
@Reinald @s1m0n4 @RunRichRun @cyberlyra @davidnjoku @piquant00
If there were an African Economic Union, the comparison would make more sense.
There is a European Union. Without it, the "innocent countries" you talk of would see their fortunes collapse. Even the mighty and proud United Kingdom, is now feeling the effects of being outside of that union. They Brexited themselves in the face, and have not recovered economically since.
This is like the drug cartel leader's wife saying "Well *I* never sold any drugs, and *I* never killed anyone!" Girl, you knew. You walked around in couture and diamonds and drove Bentley, and you knew how he paid for it all.
@Reinald @s1m0n4 @RunRichRun @cyberlyra @davidnjoku @piquant00
Anyway, getting us all the way back on topic...
When I see that Artemis splashed down, I cheer. Even though Trump is the US president, and the US bombs everyone all the time.
When I see the European Space Agency do some cool science with icy moons around Jupiter, I cheer. Even though the far-right is still rising in Europe, and the EU lets Black children drown in the Mediterranean for no good reason.
And when I see Americans and Europeans not want to cheer when Chinese astronauts grow little plants on the moon? I think that's silly, and nationalistic, and hypocritical, and unfair to Chinese scientists. And I say so.
@Reinald @RunRichRun @cyberlyra @davidnjoku @piquant00
I fear you might still be thinking about this in the wrong way, if you're still thinking in terms of "cheer for China" or "cheer for the EU."
Don't cheer for governments. Cheer for scientists.
And as someone born in Africa 🙋🏿♂️, the EU was, is, and is likely to still be a much greater and more abusive military threat than China. Like, it's not close.
@mekkaokereke Historically, this is unfortunately true.
I would *hope* that this is not the outcome going forward. That said, there is an increasing acceptance that the future belongs to the Global South, not Europe, and that we as Europeans have a duty to engage in good faith (for once, some might add!) with said Global South.
In closing, I would add that awful regimes often arise because there is nothing to temper their awfulness.
@ermo @mekkaokereke @Reinald @RunRichRun @cyberlyra @davidnjoku @piquant00
There is still a lot of arrogance in Europe about the "Global South", though. We are fed a steady stream of disaster stories, but little about their successes.
David Njoku
mekka okereke 
Cyberlyra
Rich Stein (he/him)
Reinald Kirchner
Frau mit Fahrrad 🚴🏼♀️
s1m0n4
Asta [AMP]
ermo | Rune Morling
Jürgen Hubert